RUBBER INDUSTRY

Evening Star, Issue 20132, 23 March 1929, Page 10

RUBBER INDUSTRY

now IT WAS FOUNDED Sir Henry Alexander Wickham, wiio died on September 27 in .London, in Ins eighty-fourth year, was the man (says ‘ The’Times ’) .who, in face of extraordinary difficulties, succeeded in smuggling' seeds of the Hevea tree-from the Upper Amazon, and so laid the foundation of the vast plantation rubber industry. While a planter in Brazil he began experimenting with rubber trees from seeds gathered in the 1 crests, and speedily became convinced that it would ho possible to cultivate them and introduce them into oilier parts of the tropics. Returning to England, he tried to " interest capitalists in the scheme, hut was treated as a visionary. As a result of the publication of Ins book, ‘ A Journey Through the Wilderness,' in 1872, and with the help of Sir Joseph Hooker, then director ol Kew Gardens, who had been urging the Government of India to take up the cultivation of rubber, he was commissioned by the India Office in 187 b to collect seeds of the Hevea Braziliensis. The Brazilian Government was doing its best to compel the existence ol these frees, and would certainly have forbidden the export of any seeds, Fortunately Wickham was not hampered by any definite instructions. He went to Santarem and Availed. One day a steamer appeared, the first ol a line lor trading on the upper reaches ol the Amazon. When her freight was discharged the supercargoes nil deserted, and she was left on the captain’s hands. Wickham at once chartered her tor the Government of India, and then started up the Tapajos Biver in a canoe to gather the seeds. Reaching the high tableland between the Tapajos ml the Madeira, after many narrow escapes from droAvning, .he struck into the primeval fores.t, and Avith the help of Tapuyo Indians gathered the seeds, which the natiA'e girls packed between layers of wild banana leaf in baskets of split cane. Everything had to he done against time, but at last the baskets of seeds Aveer brought back into the canoe and safely hung up in the empty ship. At Para. Wickham obtained clearance, explaining that he was in charge of delicate botanical specimens for Queen Victoria’s garden at Kcav. There, to the delight of Hooker, he deposited his treasure, and in a fortnight there were 70,000 little rubber plants flourishing in the glasshouses. From thi.s stock sprang all the Hevea trees of the whole plantation rubber industry. Many people are probably even now under the delusion that tile vast rubber industry of the East is the product of indigenous trees.